Now I just hope that my mate Alan Hansen gets a magnificent World Cup Final as a dream send-off after 22 years in punditry and 40 years in the industry.

He deserves it for being as loyal to the BBC (despite receiving several offers to go elsewhere) as he was to Liverpool.

I know for a fact that he has no intention of working for another broadcaster, and in typical Hansen fashion he will go out playing to the massive ­audience that his talents deserve with 15-20 million watching Germany against Argentina.

Make no mistake, he will be missed. He called it as he saw it, he never compromised his views and be broke the mould in terms of punditry.

It’s so easy for people to have a pop on Twitter or Facebook, but they simply do not appreciate just how difficult it is. And, of course, you have some people on social media who don’t even watch the game but still want to have something to say because everyone else is weighing in.

That never bothered Alan though, because he always had total confidence and belief in his ability.

And he was right to.

He is, however, self-aware enough to know that the very same people who rave about you being fantastic are the same people who eventually say that they’ve had enough and want to bury you.

I’m glad he is still able to go out at the top.

We’ve had our moments though - I remember one particular day in 2003, covering a live FA Cup game at Molineux between Wolves and Rochdale.

Unbeknown to us, we had somehow gone on air without realising it.

Looking back it was hilarious but, obviously, at the time... not so much.

There was Hansen calling his wife at home, asking if she had the front door keys - and it all went out. The whole conversation.

Then there was the time when we’d just got the Match of the Day contract back from ITV. It was our very first show back and the graphics were completely up the spout. Everything was.

I remember Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scoring a goal and at half time they played his post-match interview. Alan and I just carried on as best we could, soldiering on.

A chap called Phil Bigwood - who is a top operator - was in charge at the time and I remember him being almost suicidal at the time because it was just a mess.

But do you know, we never received one phone call, not one mention on the radio, one newspaper report, nothing on TV. Nothing. I think because it had been so overshadowed by the Olympics we’d got away with it.

Fortunately now we are able to laugh about it. But its times like that where you have to trust the people you are working with - which you always could with Hansen.

Before our TV careers, we were Liverpool team-mates.

I played with the likes of Paul McGrath and David O’Leary, but Hansen was by far and away the best. He was so comfortable on the ball it was embarrassing. He’d come into midfield. He was calm, composed, he just made it all look so easy.

He’d always tell me that I would end up with less brain cells than him because I headed the ball more often than he did. He was right.

But I have to say, 99 times out of 100, he’d have been right. You don’t. It just so happened that in that particular year, 1995, Manchester United happened to have Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Butt and the Neville brothers.

We’ll probably never see a side like that again. United fans tease him but sometimes as a pundit you’re better off coming out with something like that, putting your neck on the block, because people remember you.

And Hansen has never sugar-coated it. He doesn’t hold back.

By the same token, he never criticised out of malice or spite. It is always constructed. That’s why he is so respected and that is why he is so loved.

His memory, by the way, is frightening.

At a dinner party, you could be telling a story and, with the passage of time, the details probably get a bit hazy. Not for him. He remembers every little detail - we had a spell at Liverpool where Kenny called him Norris McWhirter, after the Guinness Book of Records bloke.

Overall, I think he will miss it. It's very hard to replicate the buzz of being in the game - being a coach, manager or pundit is as close to it as you can get.

We had that cameraderie, Hansen and myself - first with Des Lynam, then with Gary Lineker, and obviously with the other chaps as well. We’d be watching a game and having a chat, just as fans around the country were doing on a Saturday.

After matches, players and managers began to become aware that their defensive displays would come under the Hansen microscope. And whether you liked him or not, everybody always tuned in to hear his views.

They will do again on Sunday, because he is the yardstick by which all BBC football pundits are measured.

After the match, we at the BBC will do a little something just to let him know how loved, appreciated and respected he is by us all.

I suspect there might just be a lump in his throat by that point. There might well be for me, too.